Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/126

 of the people stood firm for the law. In 1878 new tactics were determined upon for the pending campaign. Representatives of the principal railroad companies controlling lines in Iowa had been holding conferences for the purpose of devising some plausible method of circumventing the “unfriendly legislation” contained in the Granger Law, as it was generally designated. With such able and resourceful counsellors as Thomas F. Withrow, John F. Duncombe, Henry W. Strong, N. M. Hubbard, John S. Runnels, Thomas Potter and Major E. S. Bailey, it is not strange that a plan was devised by which the “Grangers” were circumvented. It was determined to unite the citizens of the sections of the State where railroads were wanted, and had not yet been extended, with late shippers who were favored with special rates, in a well organized movement for the repeal of the Granger Law. The next step was for the various construction companies which had been building railroads in Iowa to declare that no more roads would be built, or Iowa lines extended, under the ruinous restrictions enacted. Newspapers were influenced to denounce the Grange legislation, public meetings were held and resolutions passed demanding repeal. To the public, who knew nothing of the secret concert of action, it appeared that there was a change in public opinion and a demand for repeal of the Granger Law.

Never before in the history of Iowa legislation has such a powerful and at the same time such a well chosen lobby gathered at the Capitol as that which appeared before the Seventeenth General Assembly in the winter of 1878. The corporation managers had been active during the summer and fall in securing the nomination and election of their friends to seats in the Legislature and when the House was organized they secured the presiding officer of that body, easily controlling the popular branch of the General Assembly. Senator Campbell had been elected Lieutenant-Governor and was President of the Senate.